x

75% of people globally want unbiased news (Pew Research) but are concerned they're not getting that.

Get balanced coverage with Symby. See how stories are covered across diverse outlets and spot when one side covers a story the other skips.

PODCAST

Bit of a Tangent

Gianluca Truda and Jared Tumiel

Two aspiring rationalists bring you mind-bending ideas from science, philosophy, artificial intelligence, and medicine. Whether you enjoy wide-ranging discussions or are looking to upgrade your reasoning and critical thinking skills, this podcast will satisfy your intellectual hunger and sharpen your skeptical eye.

science

All Episodes

01:27:38

031 | Kat Woods — Effective Altruism, Infohazards,...

Bit of a Tangent ·

2022/08/17

Kat Woods is an effective altruist and the co-founder of Nonlinear, which incubates longtermist nonprofits by connecting founders with ideas, funding, and mentorship. Gianluca and Kat discuss brain hacks for curing imposter syndrome and being more agentic, infohazards, the simulation hypothesis, why you don’t need permission to do things, “passive impact” via automation, and Kat’s exciting new projects at Nonlinear.-------- Shownotes: -------- Kat Woods on Twitter:

en

01:07:51

030 | Predictive Processing 3: Neurobiology,...

Bit of a Tangent ·

2020/12/03

In this episode, Gianluca and Jared discuss the neurobiology of predictive processing, the role of dopamine in reward signalling, satisfaction, and human desire. They also touch on the relation of reward to reinforcement learning and artificial intelligence. The podcast then shifts to discuss the clinical manifestations of the predictive brain, including the computational psychiatry of depression, autism-spectrum-disorder, and schizophrenia, and how top-down prediction, and precision-weighted

en

44:50

029 | Predictive Processing 2: Where The Action Is

Bit of a Tangent ·

2020/09/03

This week’s episode of Bit of a Tangent is a continuation of our 3 part series on Predictive Processing - a fascinating neuroscientific account of the way our brains come to understand the world. If you haven’t already listened to part 1 (episode 028), check that out first! In this episode Gianluca and Jared discuss the importance of sensory precision, the circular causality of prediction and action, how action comes about in a counterintuitive way from high confidence predictions, the way in which

en

50:43

028 | Predictive Processing 1: The World You Thought...

Bit of a Tangent ·

2020/08/17

It's here. It's finally here! The first in a series of three episodes diving into the predictive processing theory of brain function! Jared and Gianluca discuss top-down versus bottom-up perception, Bayesian Brain hypotheses, the logic of caring only about prediction error, and the phenomenology of visual illusions!

en

29:14

027 | 7 Practices to Survive the 2020 Apocalypse

Bit of a Tangent ·

2020/08/11

Gianluca and Jared have survived 2020 (so far) and are back for Season 3 of Bit of a Tangent. In this episode they bring you 7 new habits and techniques that can be used to iteratively upgrade yourself — even in lockdown. Forget everything else that’s going on in the world, and take a deep dive into personal optimisation. Or, as they’d put it, prepare to geek out on organisation hacks, bootstrapped learning, and motivation pumps. -------- Shownotes: -------- Jared on Twitter:

en

01:07:35

026 | Drink and be Rational

Bit of a Tangent ·

2020/03/11

[Epistemic status: slightly intoxicated] Jared and Gianluca exchange rapid-fire questions whilst becoming increasingly inebriated. Think of this episode as the Ferriss/Rose “Random Show,” but with more references to Bayesian inference. It’s pretty likely to entertain you, but hopefully you’ll find it interesting too. Topics include Email response times, VR projects, and the statistical approach to an ethical diet. -------- Shownotes: -------- Jared on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jnearestn Gianluca on

en

01:31:33

025 | Self-Supervised Machine Learning: Introduction,...

Bit of a Tangent ·

2020/03/05

On this episode of Bit of A Tangent, we discuss the emerging field of self-supervised machine learning. This is an immensely exciting area of active research in machine learning and AI - one which most people haven’t even heard about yet! We build up to the intuition for the topic by covering supervised and unsupervised learning; autoencoders and dimensionality reduction, and exploring how these techniques could be applied to Gianluca’s Quantified Self n=1 sleep quality dataset. We culminate in a

en

19:56

024 | Replacing Guilt

Bit of a Tangent ·

2020/02/04

Gianluca announces his latest project—the audio version of Nate Soares’ Replacing Guilt series—and Jared explains why it’s a notable contribution to the rationalist community. Together, they discuss how to gain the most from listening to the series and why it’s something you should strongly consider doing if you often find yourself binging Netflix until 3 AM. -------- Shownotes: -------- Replacing Guilt podcast: https://anchor.fm/guilt Rationality: From AI to Zombies podcast:

en

44:49

023 | Are Brains Just Neural Nets?

Bit of a Tangent ·

2020/01/29

Jared and Gianluca have an uncompromising exchange about computational neuroscience and its implications for life and AI research. --------------- Shownotes: --------------- Jared on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jnearestn Gianluca on Twitter: www.twitter.com/QVagabond Bit of a Tangent on Twitter (twitter.com/podtangent) and Instagram (instagram.com/podtangent/) Last episode: www.podtangent.com/e/022-6-books-you-need-to-read-in-2020/ Ideas episode: www.podtangent.com/e/021-the-top-19-ideas-from-2019/ The

en

45:17

022 | 6 Books You Need to Read in 2020… and 1 You...

Bit of a Tangent ·

2020/01/21

Gianluca presents his much-requested three non-fiction and three fiction recommendations for 2020. Jared recommends a book so long and gripping that you should probably avoid it if you have anything productive to do in the next six months. --------------- Shownotes: --------------- Jared (twitter.com/jnearestn) and Gianluca (twitter.com/QVagabond) on Twitter Bit of a Tangent on Twitter (twitter.com/podtangent) and Instagram (www.instagram.com/podtangent/) Last week’s episode:

en

57:29

021 | The Top 19 Ideas from 2019

Bit of a Tangent ·

2020/01/14

Bit of a Tangent is back! In this episode, Jared shares the 19 ideas he couldn’t stop thinking about in 2019, whilst Gianluca does two B-grade Joe Rogan impressions. Together, they discuss everything from mechanism design to personal fitness hacks, and throw in some recommendations for supercharging your learning in the new year. Strap yourselves in for a taste of the fascinating conversations that lie ahead in 2020! --------------- Shownotes: --------------- Jared (twitter.com/jnearestn) and

en

01:08:29

020 | Mental Models 3: Fantastic Biases and Where To...

Bit of a Tangent ·

2019/11/05

This is part 3 of the series on Mental Models, in which Gianluca and Jared discuss the cognitive biases that often impede aspiring rationalists. They discuss the idea of “System 1 and 2” thinking as a framing for the entire discussion, before exploring 12 of the most deadly thinking traps and how to avoid them. This includes everything from the Planning Fallacy and Anchoring, to more esoteric pitfalls that are yet to be named. Finally, they describe meta-biases—like the Bias Blindspot and the

en

55:50

019 | Mental Models 2: How To Think Like A Bayesian,...

Bit of a Tangent ·

2019/10/28

This is part 2 of our series on Mental Models. In it, we’re bringing you the most useful and applicable models we’ve encountered in everything we’ve read, heard or seen over the years! In part 2 we unpack models from Bayesian reasoning, calibration, and expected value. We also cover fat-tailed distributions, counterfactual reasoning, inversion, and red-teaming. Throughout, we build up each model with examples and motivations, and often found ourselves making previously unseen (by us) links to other

en

53:08

018 | Mental Models 1: How To Have Better Ideas and...

Bit of a Tangent ·

2019/10/22

This is part 1 of a new series on Mental Models - tips, tricks, and tools to add to your mental toolbox. In this episode we introduce the concept of a mental model but then quickly dive in to explanations of the most powerful models we’ve encountered. Join us and learn how to make better decisions (or know when a decision is not worth making), how to have more original and impactful ideas (and how to find the most promising ideas to work on out of the thousands you’ll soon have), and when tidying up

en

01:25:13

017 | Bronwyn Williams: Universal Basic Income &...

Bit of a Tangent ·

2019/10/14

This episode features the much-anticipated conversation with Bronwyn Williams on the topic of Universal Basic Income (UBI). Bronwyn is a futurist and trend analyst with a background in marketing and economics. Gianluca and Jared pick her brain about the economic viability of UBI, the influence of politics and big tech, and the trends in automation that will shape the future of humanity. Regardless of your fiscal intuitions or political leanings, this episode will equip you with the core arguments in

en

01:10:19

016 | Free Will, Compassion, and Reinforcement Learning

Bit of a Tangent ·

2019/09/24

This is part 2 of our series on free will! In this episode we reconcile how it is that we can feel like we have free will (even when we don’t), give an evolutionary argument for why this might be the case and show how knowing this makes us more compassionate people who are (paradoxically) better at achieving our goals. Along the way, we explain what a Bayesian Network is (and why you should care about yours), and give an introduction to some of the key ideas and concepts in the field of

en

01:02:16

015 | You have no Choice in the Matter

Bit of a Tangent ·

2019/09/18

This is Part 1 of the series on Free Will. In this episode, Gianluca and Jared dispel the assumption that humans have Free Will by presenting the argument from Determinism—popularised by Sam Harris. They discuss the evidence from physics, neurology, and the famous Libet experiments; before laying the groundwork for later conversations about what this implies morally and societally. You have no choice but to listen. -------- Shownotes: Sam Harris’s “Free Will:

en

01:00:51

014 | The Art of Looking - Part 1 of ??

Bit of a Tangent ·

2019/09/09

Jared and Gianluca try something new on this episode! We read passages from Robert Pirsig’s wonderful novel Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, reacting and discussing as we go! Along the way, we explored the limits of conceptual understanding (a.k.a. Shut up and taste the wine!), how the words we use to describe reality also end up defining it, limiting it or expanding it, and why cliches are so easy to dismiss and when they shouldn’t be (hint: your gran was right - there’s nothing a good

en

01:10:38

013 | How To Learn Anything!

Bit of a Tangent ·

2019/09/02

We’ve all heard about the importance of learning. We’ve all heard about the importance of learning how to learn. Well, on this episode Gianluca and Jared dive into both of these topics. They discuss the philosophies of learning they’ve encountered on their own journeys, and share several key tricks that they’ve found most helpful over the years! Along the way they discovered a new way to think about how to keep your knowledge up to date in an ever changing world! Listener feedback can be recorded

en

01:33:49

012 | How Deep Learning Does Magic

Bit of a Tangent ·

2019/08/26

This is a discussion about why deep neural nets are unreasonably effective. Gianluca and Jared examine the relationships between neural architectures and the laws of physics that govern our Universe—exploring brains, human language, and linear functions. Nothing could have prepared them for the territories this episode expanded to, so strap yourself in! ---------- Shownotes: AlphaGo beating Lee Sedol at Go: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlphaGo_versus_Lee_Sedol OpenAI Five:

en

31 results

Similar Podcasts

Classic Radio Science Fiction

solgoodmedia.com

Mission to Mars

Inception Point Ai

The 365 Days of Astronomy

365DaysOfAstronomy.org

Creek Devil

william Jevning

UFO Chronicles Podcast

Nik Hunter